Wednesday, December 21, 2016

After a successful trip to Wellington, it was time to head home. This is the return flight, on the Singapore Airlines Capital Express, connecting Singapore-Canberra-Wellington, the capital cities of Singapore, Australia and New Zealand respectively.

Intercontinental Hotel, New Zealand
In Wellington, I stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel, which was the biggest hotel in town, so I was told. This video review shows you the deluxe room that I stayed in. You could watch TV from the shower, quite neat.

Wellington Airport Air New Zealand Business Lounge
The airport was not too far away from the hotel. I took a cab, and the cost was about NZ$30. Wellington Airport is not a big airport. In face, the runway at Wellington Airport was rather short, under 2,000M! Good thing the Boeing 777-200 aircraft used by SQ on this route could still land and take off safely. Check-in at the airport was smooth and very soon, I was resting in the lounge, waiting for my flight. Singapore Airlines uses the Air New Zealand Business Lounge, and here is a review of the lounge.

Singapore Airlines SQ 292 Wellington to Canberra
The first leg of this flight from Wellington to Canberra. This was a 3 hour flight, and a very good dinner was served on board. For this flight, I had an empty seat beside me, so that made the flight even more comfortable!

The plane landed in Canberra and we had to transit for about 1 hour and 15 min. There was no lounge for premium passengers at the Canberra airport transit area, however, I found out that Business class passengers got an A$20 credit to buy food and drinks at the bar, which was located in the middle of the lounge. As I was very full, I did not utilize this perk.

SQ 292 Canberra to Singapore
Soon it was time to board the flight for Singapore. This time round, the flight was around 8 hours. By this time, I was more tired. Similar to the earlier experience, passengers were given the option of going to sleep immediately after take-off, and take our meal only before landing. I chose this option because I was already very full from the earlier Wellington-to-Canberra leg. I had a good sleep, and was woken up about 1.5hours before landing. Breakfast was pretty good. I had the noodle option.